Throughout the ages, as the natural world's color for water and sky, blue lends itself to spiritual and heavenly leanings. In these modern days, blue is embraced as the color of heaven and authority, denim jeans and corporate logos. Most blues convey a sense of trust, loyalty, cleanliness, and understanding. On the other hand, blue evolved as symbol of depression in American culture. “Singing the blues” and feeling blue” are good examples of the complexity of color symbolism and how the color has been evolved in different cultures.

Juror's Statement:

It was interesting and fun to jury a show with such a specific theme. Still I found that I had to narrow down the criteria I used in selecting images. The color blue had to be in there, and while it didn’t necessarily have to predominate, in most cases it did have to stand out and in some way “make” the image. I eliminated many images that had been heavily and obviously filtered or photoshopped, those where the blue was an obvious gimmick, and those that, even mostly blue, could easily have been mostly red, or yellow or some other color. And of course, the image itself had to be strong, so in some cases I chose images that were not necessarily about the blue, but that were powerful, and in which blue was a component.

We offer free matting and framing of accepted entries for the duration of each of our exhibition, subject to standard sizes. Photographers set their own prices if they wish to sell their work and retain all rights to their photographs.

Joanna Hurley has had a thirty-year career in book publishing working as an editor, publicist, agent, packager and publisher for dozens of photography books as well as books on many other subjects for companies large and small. She is president of HurleyMedia, LLC, which she started in 1994. Previously she was publicity director of Vintage Books, the trade paperback division of Alfred A. Knopf, marketing director of The University of New Mexico Press, and publicity director of the Body Politic Theatre/Community Arts Foundation in Chicago. During the course of her long career, she has worked on projects for a wide variety of photographers and writers ranging from Nick Brandt, Mark Klett, Richard Misrach, Irving Penn, and Eliot Porter to Tony Hillerman, Richard Russo, Thomas McGuane and Richard Ford. She is a co-founder of Radius Books, and board chair of Center, a not-for-profit organization based in Santa Fe that supports and provides opportunity for gifted, committed photographers.